Milwaukee M18 M12 Rapid Charge Station 48-59-1807 Review

Milwaukee has released a new Rapid Charge Station that helps reduce charging time with multiple batteries. It can charge individual batteries up to 40% faster according to Milwaukee, this solves the issue created by longer charge times with larger capacity batteries. It can take up to 6 batteries, 3x M18 batteries on one side and 3x M12 batteries on the opposite side. Giving you a multi voltage solution as 12 volt power tools are becoming more and more common alongside 18 volt power tools. This solves the issue of having to babysit one charger and several batteries or several chargers and batteries.

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It can also charge 3 batteries at a time. The way the charging works is, the charger is divided into 3 sections – left, middle, and right. It will charge one battery in each section at a time. So you can charge 3 M18 batteries at a time or 3 M12 batteries at a time or any combination of the 2. If you have 2 batteries plugged into one section it will charge the first one while the next one waits to be charged. So in other words if you have 2 batteries, one m18 and one m12 battery and you want to charge them both, you would have to place one battery in one section and the other battery in any of the other 2 sections for both of them to charge at the same time. If you place them in the same section the second battery will have to wait until the second has finished charging.

There is a new charging indicator light that I haven’t seen before. Before you would have a solid red light telling you it was charging and a solid green light to tell you it was done charging along with 2 error codes for faulty batteries or extreme temperatures. Now this charger will alert you when the batteries are atleast 80% charged by flashing green. This is a great feature to have as it lets you know the batteries have plenty of charge in them in case you don’t feel like waiting for a complete charge.

It has a handle as its quite big and makes it easy to transport. It can be wall mounted for a more permanent solution. Milwaukee made it easy to wall mount as they took the guesswork out of placing screws with easy to follow marks on the base of the charger to let you know where to mark you screw locations for wall mounting. And so the rapid charger doesn’t take up valuable outlet space, it has a pass through plug.

In testing I charged up several fully depleted M18 and M12 batteries to see how fast the charger can charge individual and multiple batteries.

Results EDIT updated results include the new Milwaukee compact M12 3.0 battery and M12 XC 6.0 battery:

Charging 6 total batteries, 3x M18 XC 4.0 ah & 3x M12 XC 4.0 ah batteries took 2 hours and 7 minutes. If each battery was charged separately the total combined time would have been 8 hours and 45 minutes making the rapid charge station 4x faster charging 6 batteries than charging independently with regular chargers.

M18 XC 4.0 batteries charged in as little as 1 hour 6 minutes. 3 separate test were conducted with 1 hour 6 minutes, 1 hour 9 minutes, and 1 hour and 11 minutes on three separate batteries. The results were consistent making the rapid charge station up to 26% faster than a regular charger at 1 hour and 30 minutes.

M12 XC 4.0 batteries charged in as little as 54 minutes. 3 separate test were conducted with 54 minutes, 56 minutes, and 1 hour on three separate batteries. The results were consistent making the rapid charge station up to 36% faster than a regular charger at 1 hour and 25 minutes.

M12 2.0 batteries charged in as little as 28 minutes. 3 separate test were conducted with 30 minutes, 28 minutes, and 28 minutes on three separate batteries. The results were consistent making the rapid charge station up to 37% faster than a regular charger at 45 minutes.

M12 Red Lithium 1.5 battery charged in as little as 23 minutes. 2 separate test were conducted with 23 minutes and 23 minutes on one battery. The results were consistent making the rapid charge station up to 23% faster than a regular charger at 30 minutes.

M18 XC 5.0 battery charged in as little as 56 minutes. 2 separate test were conducted with 56 minutes and 57 minutes on one battery. The results were consistent making the rapid charge station up to 46% faster than a regular charger at 1 hour and 45 minutes.

M12 compact 3.0 battery charged in as little as an hour. I did two separate charge time tests with 1 hour on the first test and 1 hour and 1 minute on the second test. What was strange was that the charge time on the rapid charge station is exactly the same charge time as the charge time with the regular M18 dual voltage charger of 1 hour, meaning the rapid charge station did not charge this battery faster. 0 % faster charging.

M12 XC 6.0 battery charged in 1 hour 24 minutes. This was  27% faster charging compared to the 1 hour and 55 minutes on the regular M18 dual voltage charger.

• M18 XC 4.0 = 1 hour 6 minutes (1 hour 10 minutes rounded) 26% faster charging
• M18 XC 5.0 = 56 minutes (1 hour rounded) 46% faster charging
• M12 1.5 = 23 minutes 23% faster charging
• M12 compact 2.0 = 28 minutes (30 minutes rounded) 37% faster charging
• M12 compact 3.0 = 1 hour / 0% faster charging
• M12 XC 4.0 = 54 minutes (1 hour rounded) 36% faster charging
• M12 XC 6.0 = 1 hour 24 minutes (1 hour 30 minutes rounded) 27% faster charging

Final thoughts:

I didn’t have every size battery for the M18 or M12 platform so I ran tests with what I did have as can be seen from the above results. The results were consistent across the board and the different battery capacities were tested atleast twice to rule out any inconsistencies. Although different sizes produced different percentages of faster charging times, they did provide proof that the charger can achieve close to that of the 40% faster charging claim. I noticed that the M18 XC 5.0 battery produced the best results with a 46% faster charging speed. It even beat actual charging time compared to the M18 XC 4.0 battery. At first I thought it might have been a fluke so I charged it again and achieved a one minute difference. I found out that batteries with a lightning bolt logo on them can be charged faster which the XC 5.0 battery has the logo on the top.

With the improved charging times, I find the rapid charge station to be a great solution to have if you’re running high powered tools like saws and a large crew running them. And the fact that it charges 3 batteries at a time means less downtime sitting around scratching your head. I also like that even if you only charge one battery at a time it still saves time because it charges faster. This is the solution I’ve been looking to help out with the ever increasing charge times with larger capacity batteries. You know its getting out of hand when batteries are taking close to 2 hours to charge with the larger and larger capacities.

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